NEW YORK, NY: Steven Rosenbush and Michael Totty of The Wall Street Journal discuss the role of “big data,” defined by companies nearly instantaneous access to large quantities of information that they gather continuously, in process improvement.  The article highlights how the data is being used in a variety of settings – from cutting health care costs to soliciting consumer input on product designs to improving operations through better asset tracking.  As the ability to analyze data and optimize resulting decisions is predicted to become more important in the future, Industrial and Systems Engineering stand to play a prominent role.